“T.W. Amies
Avery
E.F. Ballard
A.C. Barham…”
I grew up in a small village in Kent and every Remembrance Day the roll of honour would be read aloud. This local memorial, like many others around the world, was covered with the names of the dead. It provided a personal, moving reminder of those who had died in the First and Second World Wars.
However, at first glance, the Cenotaph appears blank. This memorial, unveiled on Armistice Day in 1920, towers over Parliament Street on Whitehall. It’s only when you get closer to the memorial that you notice the inscription to “The Glorious Dead”. Only from above can you see the empty tomb that sits on top of the Portland stone structure. Compared to local war memorials, I always felt that the Cenotaph was impersonal. I felt that by trying to represent everyone, the Cenotaph instead represented no one. As part of our project, I wanted to explore how memorials were designed, built and used by different communities in comparison to the Cenotaph. The National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) does just that.
The Cenotaph
The NMA is a “year-round national centre of Remembrance” based in Staffordshire where people are “remembered by living trees… in a world at peace”. The first trees were planted in 1996 and the first memorial was dedicated to the 49th West Riding Infantry Division in 1998.
Memorials at the arboretum are dedicated to many different communities from different time periods and the NMA is more than an armed services memorial site. Soldiers shot at dawn in the First World War are remembered alongside those evacuated in the Second World War, people killed on 9/11 and those who died of COVID-19, amongst many others.
We visited the NMA and spoke to Aaron Rossi, the Exhibitions and Heritage Manager. Aaron discussed how the NMA is interested in creating authentic ways for communities to commemorate their members, including communities that traditionally may not have felt represented. There are many art projects at the NMA and a poet in residence who facilitates remembrance sessions. One project, Kiln Fired Memory, explores how creative processes can help communities to remember by exploring “the ways in which ceramics have been used to remember and celebrate people and events in cultures around the globe.” The NMA wants to spark new ways of thinking and have ongoing conversations about memorials and remembrance.
The National Memorial Arboretum, Armed Forces Memorial
We also spoke to Kevin Bazeley, a member of the executive team of Fighting With Pride, to learn about the memorial for LGBTQ+ veterans. Fighting With Pride was established to support the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ personnel who served in the Armed Forces under the “gay ban”, which was lifted on 12 January 2000. In 2022, Lord Etherton’s LGBT Veterans Independent Review was established to “understand the impact of the ban… and to make recommendations to government.” As part of the final report, memorialisation at the NMA was listed as a recommendation.
The bronze memorial, “An Opened Letter”, contains words that were given in evidence as part of the review and hopeful words like “pride” are polished so that they shine in the sunlight. The memorial represents the terrifying formal letter of accusation but could also reflect the hidden letters LGBTQ+ personnel wrote for their loved ones. The letter is crumpled and has been opened, representing the loss of privacy of LGBTQ+ personnel. However, the letter could also represent the opening up and revealing of testimonies that shaped the independent review and the recommendations that followed.
Kevin said that the memorial is “exactly what the community wanted it to be” and “is the most important non-financial reparation. It built a real bridge and provides a genuinely hopeful message for the future”. King Charles III unveiled the memorial, marking the first royal engagement in support of the LGBTQ+ community. The “Opened Letter” allows all LGBTQ+ personnel and veterans to remember, a living memorial for living memory.
My images of Opened Letter
After visiting the NMA, my perspective on the Cenotaph changed. Undoubtedly, the NMA is needed to remember those who may feel at odds with the Cenotaph, the “Glorious Dead”, and the authority represented at the Cenotaph on 11 November. Would those shot at dawn in the First World War feel represented? Would those who were banned from Her Majesty’s Armed Forces feel represented before the recommendations and reparations were made? The NMA allows these communities to remember in their own space.
However, the Cenotaph is a blank page where any ideas or beliefs can be projected onto the blank stone. The Cenotaph takes on your own personal ideas of remembrance and represents everyone, all at once. For some, they may imagine the Cenotaph covered in the words of LGBTQ+ veterans’ testimony. For some, they may imagine a soldier shot at dawn, lying in the empty tomb in the centre of Whitehall. For some, like me, they may imagine their local war memorial transported to the heart of London.
You may see a blank page. You might see an opened letter.
Sources:
The Cenotaph | English Heritage
kiln-fired-memory-nma-call-for-artists.pdf
https://www.fightingwithpride.org.uk/who-we-are/
https://lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk/timeline/
https://lgbtveterans.independent-review.uk/reports/recommendations/
https://www.making-marks.com/lgbt-armed-forces-community-memorail
This article was written as a response to the Reframing Remembrance project.